


Make You Feel My Love

by gimmefire



Category: Formula 1 RPF
Genre: M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2009-01-04
Updated: 2009-01-04
Packaged: 2017-12-03 17:59:00
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,973
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/701067
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/gimmefire/pseuds/gimmefire
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Snapshots from an unpredictable, frustrating and testing 2008 season for the Ferrari odd couple.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Make You Feel My Love

**Author's Note:**

> Title and fic inspired by the song _[Make You Feel My Love](http://www.lyricstime.com/adele-make-you-feel-my-love-lyrics.html)_ as performed by Adele. Felipe's POV. Angst and fluff. Written for [](http://aitakute.livejournal.com/profile)[](http://aitakute.livejournal.com/)**aitakute** for Secret Santa 2008.

_Wroom! 2008._

"I love you."

He had perhaps been a little premature with those words, despite the fact that he'd had them tickling his mind for some time now. He had also perhaps been a tiny bit too drunk to have that precious brain-to-mouth filter in place to prevent those words from appearing. Accepting Kimi's offer of an evening bundled up in his log cabin, with fleece blankets and a fire to warm the outsides and vodka to warm the insides, was perhaps a foolhardy idea, especially when feeling cold and lonely after having wiped out for the fifth time that day on those pure white slopes outside. He wasn't that bad at this snow related stuff, but today he wasn't that _good_ either. Vodka made things better, though. So did Kimi.

"What?" The Finn responded, equally swathed in blankets and close enough to indulgently snuggle up to.

Felipe blinked slowly, half attempting to turn over what he'd just said in his mind. The words wouldn't co-operate, or he was too distracted by Kimi's proximity, or he was too drunk to focus, so he just repeated himself.

"I love you."

A six month long crush on Kimi peppered with stolen kisses behind the motorhome didn't really constitute as love, and he'd been through all this before with two of his previous team mates so he really ought to know better by now, but with good sense sufficiently dulled Felipe looked at the other man very matter-of-factly. _I've said what I've said. What are you going to do about it?_

Eventually, Kimi smiled, giving a low chuckle. Felipe had no idea what that meant but he grinned back, not a little smugly. He leaned in to claim a sweet kiss; not their first and, Felipe rather hoped, not their last either.

\----

_Spain, post race._

Felipe bounced on his heels outside Kimi's hotel room, having been summoned by text message from his own room a few minutes ago. Something about being wined but not necessarily dined. The Brazilian glanced down at the sizeable bottle of champagne in his hand as the door before him finally swung open, and smirked as he met Kimi's eyes.

"Would you have got to the door quicker if I told you I had this?" he asked, waving the bottle aloft.

Kimi smiled mysteriously in response. "No, I was busy with something." He stepped back, opening the door wider to reveal the black marble bar topped with two full glasses, a slice of lime beneath a clutch of ice in each.

An incredulous but amused look crossed Felipe's face as he approached the bar. "Did you make Caipirinhas?" he asked, smirk tugging at his lips.

Kimi shrugged, closing the door, and you'd be forgiven for thinking that he looked a little bit pleased with himself. "I tried to. We got the one-two and it's your birthday weekend," he explained. "I thought maybe we should have something different."

Felipe positively beamed; that was until he picked up a glass and took a sip. First his nose wrinkled, swiftly followed by his lips pursing and his eyes narrowing in acute distaste. He rounded off the Oscar-worthy reaction with a wheezy, strained cough.

"They're not so bad. You're exaggerating," Kimi said with a faintly haughty look.

"You do know what is supposed to be in a Caipirinha, don't you?" Felipe retorted, his expression softening into amusement.

"Well, I only could find two of those little sugar packets you get with the tea. You don't usually get cachaca in a minibar either."

Finally Felipe laughed, setting the glass back down and sidling up to the other man, sliding an arm comfortably around his waist. "Maybe it's not a good idea to test this on a Brazilian right away. But thank you."

Kimi, to his credit, didn't look particularly offended by the less than glowing review. "I just like drinking them. Making them is somebody else's job."

Smile widening, Felipe dipped his fingers into his glass and pulled out the lime slice, sucking on it before stretching up to brush his lips against Kimi's, tempting the Finn into a flavoursome kiss. Warmth ignited in his chest as he looped both arms around a pale neck, that warmth growing as Kimi's hand settled at the small of his back, their kiss falling into an unhurried rhythm. When craving fingers worked their way past the waist of Felipe's jeans and a low purr traced his ear - _Leave the drinks until later?_ \- he felt his stomach swoop.

Aiming to score one-two wins for the rest of the season seemed like an even better plan than usual at that moment.

\----

_France, post-race._

Felipe gave an almost apologetic smile when Kimi's hotel room door finally opened. As after races before, he held up the customary bottle of champagne. "One-two again, this is a good habit." He shrugged a shoulder. "It maybe didn't go exactly how we thought today, but it's good for the team."

This evening, however, Kimi merely eyed the bottle for a moment before returning his distinctly reserved gaze back to Felipe. "I don't think we have as much to celebrate this time."

Felipe's smile faded, slightly taken aback. "At least you finished the race," he pointed out, sounding a little affronted. "At least it wasn't a McLaren or a BMW that passed you."

Kimi made a small noise of affirmation but still seemed unwilling to let the other man into his room.

"Why is it—" Felipe began, a frown etching his brow, and almost immediately silenced himself. He reined in the rather petulant but immediate urge to point out that it seemed to be okay for Kimi to be the one in a one-two, but not the other way around. The situation was different this time and he'd win no favours just being a dick about it. Instead he grudgingly offered a compromise, though he was unable to hide the irritation from his voice. "Maybe we drink but we don't celebrate. Would that be better for you?"

The Finn was initially silent, and Felipe contemplated just leaving him to his shitty mood before an argument started. To his relative surprise, however, those blue eyes dropped away from him, focussing on the door in his hand. "Sorry," Kimi murmured.

 _The Iceman melteth,_ Felipe thought wryly, and kept that thought firmly to himself.

Kimi stepped back, offering a small smile that didn't reach his eyes. Now it was Felipe's turn to hesitate, that frown still present on his face. Deciding eventually that good champagne shouldn't be drunk alone, the Brazilian stepped into the room, his free hand coming up to graze Kimi's stomach as he passed him.

He hoped that the next few hours wouldn't be spent sat sipping champagne in sullen silence. He also hoped that this wasn't a hint of things to come.

\----

_Belgium, post-race._

The door did not open.

Felipe leaned against the wall beside Kimi's steadfastly shut hotel room door, listened for sounds of movement within, waited. The door did not open. The bottle in Felipe's hands was not the usual celebratory champagne but the commiserating vodka, one of Kimi's favourites, if Felipe remembered correctly. Not that it was doing any good right then.

Several times now he'd fruitlessly tried to see into Kimi's room through the peephole. A restless hand, a hand which should have been caressing bare Finnish skin at that moment, ran fingertips up and down the door jamb. His head rocked to the side, mouth close to that sliver of space.

"You don't have to let me in," he murmured softly.

An apology stuck in his throat, made it hurt. It could have simply been for the indignity and heartbreak of Kimi crashing out, for himself inheriting the win on hallowed ground that hitherto _belonged_ to his team mate, for having waited outside the Finn's room for almost half an hour when clearly the occupant wanted to be left alone. No such apology would more than half form, however, halted by the stubborn inward insistence that he had nothing to apologise for.

"Kimi?" he tried again. Not a sound from within. "Could you just open the door a little bit?"

There could not be a clearer illustration of how different the two of them were. Felipe wanted – no, needed – human contact, anything from a pat on the shoulder to a tight embrace, in situations like this, whether he was receiving them or giving them. A tender touch meant everything to him, and without it, he simply didn't know what to do. This agonising half an hour of nothing but a closed door and silence made him feel completely helpless.

"Just make a sound or something," Felipe said, shifting until his forehead rested against the wall. "Just a little sound to hear that you're okay." He closed his eyes, strained his ears, hoped.

Not a sound from within. The door did not open.

Felipe remained there for ten more minutes, occasionally whispering words of support, hopeful requests, trying not to acknowledge that he had no idea if Kimi was even close enough to the door to hear him and beginning to feel incredibly lonely. Eventually he gave the wall at his back a tiny frustrated thump with his fist.

"Okay," he murmured, mostly to himself. He pushed away from the wall and set the vodka bottle down at Kimi's door. Heart sunk low in his chest, Felipe turned and headed back towards his room, pushing away the thought that the distance between them was growing into a chasm, and it seemed he was powerless to stop it.

\----

_China, pre-race._

"It isn't my fault that you had a bad season."

"I know."

"Then why—" Felipe sighed and lowered his voice. "Why do I always speak to you and think we're going to fight?"

Kimi remained slouched in the large black moon chair in his hotel room. He looked more uninterested than grouchy. "You're the first one to raise your voice, so I don't know."

Felipe scowled momentarily. "I get frustrated with you," he explained. "Because I never know what you're feeling. For half of this year I'm guessing all the time, I don't see you for almost all the weekend, and when we do talk it's like we're not even friends. I don't know how to talk to you."

Kimi seemed vaguely nonplussed. "Just like always," he said simply, and Felipe sighed, seeing that the conversation was going nowhere fast. He decided to broach the subject of the race tomorrow, the main reason why he was there. He had no idea if Kimi and Stefano had already discussed what he was about to bring up, but it had been steadily gnawing at him since Friday. He had to say something or else he wouldn't sleep that night.

"With these feelings I've been having, where I don't know how you are and I don't understand what you think, I worry." He tugged on his sleeve, fiddling with the button as words tumbled out of him. "I know you shouldn't tell anybody about your weaknesses like this, but I worry enough that...I-I want you to remember and think about last year in Brazil, what I did for you and for the team, because I don't think that you understand how much it hurt me to do it, but I did it and-and I don't know if I can trust you to do the same for me."

Silence fell like a lead weight and Felipe's gaze flickered away. The words had sounded awful in his head however he phrased it, and they sounded no better when out in the air. Kimi sloped up from his prone position, and for a second Felipe wondered if he was about to get punched.

"You're asking me to move aside for you?" Kimi asked eventually, eyebrow slightly quirked.

Mildly rattled, Felipe snorted. "Right, I'm a bad person for not assuming that you would just move over for me right away, of course. I should have realised this."

"So are you?" Kimi persisted.

"I'm not _asking_ you— I," Felipe stumbled over his words, taking a moment to actually wonder if he was, and shrugged a little helplessly. "I-I don't know, maybe. If it will give me a reaction I can understand, maybe I am asking you. This is why I say I don't know how to talk to you." His shoulders sank. "I don't think I trust you to help me on the track if I need it."

Kimi's expression remained impenetrable but for a faint frown crossing his face. "You don't need to trust me. You need to focus on yourself."

Felipe put his hands to his head, turning in a small circle as if searching for agreement from some phantom observer. When his eyes returned to Kimi, utter frustration welled up within him and he raised his hand and gave his team mate a sharp slap in the chest to perhaps snap him out of it. "Of _course_ I need to trust you!" he exclaimed, exasperated. "Maybe you have never thought to trust me, not even in Brazil last year, but if I can trust you here and now, in this kind of situation, I need to trust you out on the track as well."

Not knowing how else to express himself he stepped forward, grasping Kimi's hand and threading their fingers together, pulling himself close enough to kiss.

"We are different. Very different. I know this," he murmured, looking up at the other man. "I need things that maybe you don't need, and that's fine. If you needed to be left alone a lot this season and I didn't do that, I'm sorry, maybe I should have accepted that. Maybe you shouldn't always have to spell it out for me." He lifted Kimi's hand to his mouth, kissing the heel of the Finn's palm. "But I do need this right now. I need to know that I can trust you."

Felipe was achingly grateful when Kimi moved closer, that other hand coming to rest on his hip. Thin lips pressed to the side of his head, and he let himself sink into the touch, relief beginning to slip through him.

"You should think about your own race tomorrow," Kimi said softly.

That relief dissipated immediately, leaving Felipe with nothing but that same gnawing feeling as before. He prised his hand from Kimi's and turned away, muttering, "Why can't you just say it?"

Kimi seemed reluctant to let the other man go, his other hand sliding across Felipe's back before catching his arm. "Why can't you just ask me?"

"I was hoping that I wouldn't have to..."

Kimi shrugged. "There is your answer."

Felipe gritted his teeth and pulled away, wondering if Kimi had been listening to him at all. He had taken a few steps towards the door when, on hearing Kimi mutter something in his native tongue, he turned around with a glare.

"You know, there are always the rumours that you're going to retire next year," he said bitterly. "Maybe that would be the best thing for the two of us."

Kimi didn't miss a beat, irritation suddenly clear in his eyes. "So then you can move on to the next team mate?"

Felipe stilled, Kimi's quiet words striking him hard. "I love you," he said, tone almost reproachful. Then, quieter, "I do." Silently wishing that he hadn't brought tomorrow's race up at all, if anything feeling worse than he had before, he continued to the door and reached for the handle.

"I didn't mean that," Kimi murmured with a sigh.

Looking back from the doorway to the visibly downcast Finn, Felipe felt a twinge of regret at his words, at the pair of them having torn chunks out of each other almost since he'd entered Kimi's room that evening. It took Felipe a few moments to accept Kimi's words and the fact that the pain he himself was suffering was mutual, but eventually, he nodded.

\----

_Brazil, post-race._

Felipe finished tugging the laces of his shoe into a tight bow and remained hunched over, resting his forearms on his thighs. With all the press finally dealt with as the light faded, his family elsewhere after visiting him for quiet commiserations, the team occupying themselves with the business of dismantling and packing away their lives and having changed out of his champagne-damp race suit, peace had finally descended. Noise from the rest of the paddock was framed by the low hiss of rain still steadily falling. His room in the Ferrari motorhome was mercifully quiet. While hours had passed, the weight in his heart had not diminished.

The door to his room squeaked slightly as it opened. Looking up, Felipe scrubbed a hand across tired, damp eyes and briefly thought about reminding Kimi that his room was next door. The Finn closed the door behind him and sat beside his team mate on the red leather sofa. The sound of the rainstorm outside filled the silence for a while.

"You know," Felipe began in a raw voice, pausing to clear his throat. "It's things like this today that make me wonder what is the point." He picked at his fingernails. "Just for a second."

"It was nice of them to boo for you out there," Kimi offered with a wry half-smile.

Felipe responded with his own smile, wan and exhausted, and Kimi shifted closer to him, reaching across to clasp his hand and squeeze it gently. The Brazilian pressed fingertips over his eyes, the heaviness in his chest suddenly becoming painful again. When a sob escaped him, Kimi tugged the hand away from his face and ran a thumb along his jawline, leaning in to claim a tender kiss; not their first and, Felipe fervently hoped as Kimi murmured against his lips, not their last.

"Love you."


End file.
